


The View From The Shore

by FabulaRasa



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 09:16:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19885237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FabulaRasa/pseuds/FabulaRasa
Summary: This is a continuation of the Sanctuary universe, but a short, self-contained one this time. Hal continues to struggle with finding out how he fits in the family, and exactly how many different directions family runs.Previous works in this series:SanctuaryandLaundry Day





	The View From The Shore

He swam slowly to consciousness, aware only of the lightness in his limbs. _Yeah, that seems about right_ , he thought. There was light coming through the wide hospital windows, and it was a bit bright, and he blinked against it, tried to sit up, took a little of the water in the plastic cup beside his bedside table. 

“Good morning,” said a cheerful voice beside his bed, and Hal’s stomach sank. 

“Hey,” he said hoarsely. “I was. . . just about to call you.”

“Were you? How delightful. I do so enjoy morning phone calls.” 

“Alfred,” he said. “I get. . . I get you are probably pissed at me right now, but—”

“No Hal, I’m not angry with you.”

It landed like a depth charge in the quiet hospital room – his given name like that, shorn of anything else. Not Master Harold, not Captain Jordan – just Hal. And for the first time he really got it, why Alfred used such formal names with them all the time – Master Bruce, and Master Damian, and Master Richard, and on and on. Hal had always found it a little annoying, the truth was, but now he got it. It was because it gave you somewhere to go, was the thing. It left your given name as this thing he could use when he really needed to, and in the year and a half Hal had been living in the Manor, Alfred had never really needed to. Until today. 

Alfred was just sitting there placidly, legs crossed, dressed not in his usual suit but in a perfectly tailored sweater (and how did he do that, how did he make a fucking sweater look tailored?) and neat trousers, all unassuming and shit, and the charge nurse wouldn’t know how expensive those shoes were. Never anything wrong with Alfred’s sense of style.

That was another funny thing that he hadn’t ever thought about – of course Bruce had learned to dress from Alfred. That was why Bruce’s cuffs were always just so, his taste so impeccable. He hadn’t learned that at boarding school; he had learned it from Alfred. 

Hal swallowed and tried again. “Look,” he said. “I didn’t know, when I went to Leslie’s office yesterday, that she was going to admit me. And it’s not this big huge deal, all right? It’s just this IV muscle relaxant that she wants to try, and it takes about a 36-hour course of treatment, is all, so that’s why I’m here, all right? It’s not because there’s something wrong or anything like that. Everything’s fine.” 

“And why did you go to Dr. Thompkins’ office yesterday? Did you have an appointment?”

“I. . . no. I was. . . I’d been having some trouble, and—”

“Meaning you went to see Dr. Thompkins because you were in unbearable agony. And you drove yourself, which was foolish in the extreme. Is there any particular reason you did not ask me to drive you?”

“I—okay look, you were very busy yesterday, and I just thought—”

“You didn’t think, not in the least. If you had—”

“ _Would you stop fucking interrupting me?_ ”

Holy shit, he had just yelled at Alfred. And cursed. Holy shit. But Alfred did nothing but cock a brow at him, ever so slightly, and Hal felt that same wait what just happened thing that happened sometimes with Bruce, where he was vaguely aware that he had just been wound up on purpose. 

“I. . . apologize,” he said, sinking back into the bed, and Alfred took a sip of his coffee. Hal lay back and closed his eyes. He was groggy, and he couldn’t figure that out, because he had just woken up, unless there was a hell of a lot more in that IV than muscle relaxant. 

“I just. . . I didn’t want you to call Bruce,” he murmured. 

“I’m aware,” Alfred said. 

“It’s not a big deal,” Hal said again. He kept his eyes shut. “The muscle relaxant is helping. She thinks if I can do this course of treatment once a month or so, I won’t have to rely on painkillers so much. It’s not some type of emergency situation.”

“I am also aware of that. No thanks to you, of course, but I am aware.”

“And Bruce has a job to do that is not this.”

“Correct.”

“And I knew you would call him.”

He heard Alfred setting his coffee cup down, going to stand at the wide windows. It was a nice view he had, but then again he did kind of have Cadillac insurance now. He opened his eyes to see Alfred just standing there, studying the view, and the wind ruffling the waves of Gotham Harbor. “Why?” Alfred said, not turning around.

“Why. . . what?”

“Why did you know I would call Bruce?”

“Because. . . because you would have, I dunno.”

“Suppose you had asked me not to. What do you think I would have done then?”

Hal was silent, and Alfred turned around. Weird that he had never thought of Alfred as a handsome man, but he was. Tall and lean and with that shock of salt and pepper hair. Dressed as he was, he looked like he had wandered in from the Gotham Yacht Club. Was it weird that he kind of looked like Bruce? Was that something you could pick up from the person who raised you, too?

“You think I would have called Bruce anyway,” Alfred said. 

“Look,” Hal said. “In every way that matters. . . he’s your son. I get that. And the thing is—”

“And what are you, Hal? If Bruce is my son, then what are you?”

 _The guy fucking your son_ did not seem like the sort of thing he could say to Alfred. _The guy who lives in your house. The stray off the street. The guy you had pity on._

“I see,” Alfred said, as though he had heard all those answers in Hal’s silence. The quietness of Alfred’s _I see_ was worse than any yelling could ever have been. He imagined thirteen-year-old Bruce, being reproved by Alfred. 

“I just needed you not to call him,” Hal said.

“Well,” Alfred said, sitting back down. “You’ll be happy to know then that I didn’t. But Dr. Thompkins did. And then she rang me.”

“Shit,” Hal sighed. “Why the fuck did she—shit. Now Bruce is gonna come here, and he’s gonna think something’s wrong, and he’s gonna tank his investigation because of some stupid fucking routine medical thing, and Christ, that didn’t need to happen. For fuck’s sake.”

“No, it didn’t need to happen. And if you had called me yesterday, and explained what was going on, I would have been able to head off any calls to Bruce. But you didn’t call me. And you didn’t call me because you didn’t trust me.”

“Alfred that’s not—come on, it doesn’t have anything to do with trust. I didn’t mean to—come on.”

The nurse came in just then, her cart of syringes and vials in tow, chattering at him and clucking at him about the uneaten food on his tray (had he slept through breakfast? he didn’t remember that) and Alfred excused himself to the hallway to take a phone call from the caterers. Hal stared out at the view while the nurse worked on extracting half his blood volume. He watched the wind on the harbor. It was picking up out there, the gusts getting bigger. Maybe rain tonight. Damian was getting interested in sailing, weirdly enough. Hal was trying to be supportive, but it wasn’t really his thing. 

_Why not?_ Damian had said last week. 

_Because I dunno, because it’s not like a real sport, I guess. No way to beat somebody._

_That’s not true_ , Damian had said. _There are yacht races all the time, all over the world! It’s very competitive._

_Yeah, buncha rich guys yelling at each other on their boats. The loser has to drink non-imported scotch for a year._

_You just don’t like yachting because rich people do it._

_Yeah, probably._

_You’re a rich person._

_Only under duress, kid. Let’s not make it worse than it is._ Damian’s laugh at that had made him look older and wiser than his years. 

When the nurse went out the door he caught the tail end of Alfred’s phone conversation. She left the door partially cracked, and Hal could hear the rising frustration in Alfred’s voice. 

“No, I absolutely cannot meet this afternoon. If there are invoices you need approved there is no reason you can’t send those by e-mail, and—no, I cannot make these decisions by a phone conference. My son is in the hospital and I have no more time for this today, there are decisions you will simply have to make. That is what ‘event co-ordinator’ means, does it not? You co-ordinate events? Well, we are having an event, and I need you to bloody co-ordinate,” he snapped. There was a lengthy sigh, and a considerable pause. Hal could hear the rattle of a cart in the hall, as someone went by with food trays. A nurse’s voice called from the station down the hall. 

“Yes,” he could hear Alfred saying, wearily. “Yes, I suppose, fine, Tuesday will have to do.”

Alfred slipped back into the room, sliding his phone into his pocket. He shut the door behind him. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I do believe that on my tombstone there shall be engraved the words ‘We Finally Won,’ paid for by a consortium of every catering company on the east coast. But speaking of food, you don’t appear to have eaten any of yours.”

“Yeah, I. . . I think I slept through it. I don’t remember.”

“Well why don’t I go fetch us something then? There’s that French bakery not too far away as I recall – Dominique’s, is it? I’m sure I can find something there to stimulate your appetite.”

“Some coffee,” Hal croaked. “I need to wake up.”

“That is exactly what I won’t be bringing you. What you need is sleep. You are plainly exhausted. But name the herbal tea and it shall be yours.”

“Ugh, Alfred, come on.”

“As devastatingly persuasive a counter-argument as that is, I think I shall stand fast on no coffee. And as for—”

His phone buzzed again, and this time he didn’t step out into the hall to take it. 

“Master Bruce,” he said into the phone. “How goes the investigation?”

Alfred’s hearing was excellent, which meant that the fact Bruce’s voice was audible on the other end of the line was not at all because Alfred had the volume turned up. “Yes, of course, it’s my mistake,” Alfred said, cutting across the angry voice on the other end. “I meant to ring you last night and completely forgot. His hospitalization was unexpected, yes, but nothing to be alarmed about. I’ve been with him since yesterday afternoon, and he did ask me to ring you, though I confess I quite forgot.”

Alfred was just sitting there calmly in his neat sweater, bald-faced lying to Bruce and not turning a hair. Not a fucking tell on him anywhere. Bruce’s voice sounded even angrier.

“Well there’s no need to shout so,” Alfred was saying serenely. “He’s quite all right. As Leslie said, there is hope that this new muscle relaxant will do some good, and if it’s as effective as she hopes, perhaps it can help with pain relief as well.”

A pause, and Bruce’s voice was still louder than it ought to have been, but not as crackling as before. “Yes I’m sure,” Alfred said. “No no, my fault entirely, I’ve had his phone with me, he couldn’t have phoned you.”

Another lie – his phone was somewhere around here, probably in the pocket of his pants which were in some drawer. Out of charge, most likely. He had been so exhausted and in so much pain he had been close to blacking out yesterday, he realized now. Hal dropped his eyes in shame, listening to Alfred lie his fucking head off for him. 

“No, of course not, I have things under control here. Yes of course, I’ll tell him to ring you when he wakes up. I—”

A pause, more angry voice.

“No, he’s not overtired at all, he and I simply stayed up too late last night chatting is all. Yes yes, I’ll tell him. And for heaven’s sake, turn your plane around and head back to Pretoria, there’s no need for you to come here at all, Leslie oughtn’t to have alarmed you so. Yes I’m sure. Hal will tell you so himself when he wakes up. Master Bruce, sincerely, would I tell you something that wasn’t—”

He broke off, and laughed a bit. “Well all right, you have me there, once or twice. But truly, all is well here. Yes, I’ll update you later. No—no, I will not give you half-hour bulletins, don’t be ridiculous. Yes. Yes. Yes I am aware of that. Yes. I will ring you from the car, all right?” And at last he clicked the phone off and tucked it back in his pocket. Hal’s face burned with shame. 

“Thank you,” he said quietly. 

“You’re welcome.”

“That was some pretty impressive lying.”

“Something of a necessity in my line of work.”

“Yeah. I get that. I just. . . didn’t think you would ever lie to Bruce.”

Alfred gave him a quizzical look. Or maybe it was just pitying. “Master Harold. There is a difference between lying, and curating information. Master Bruce has a great deal on his plate, and I frequently do my best to keep extraneous or irrelevant information to a minimum. I control the flow of information for him, when I have to.”

“That. . . sounds like a very fancy explanation of lying.”

“To the untrained observer, possibly.” There was a wry note to Alfred’s voice. 

“Of course,” Hal said. He was feeling sleepy again. There were definitely painkillers in that IV. His limbs felt a bit floaty. 

“Why don’t you get some rest,” Alfred said. “I’ll see about that bakery, and when you wake I shall have something palatable for you instead of whatever swill they’re feeding you here.”

“Okay,” Hal mumbled. “Hey Alfred,” he said, as Alfred was getting up. He had just remembered what Alfred had said on the phone to the caterers earlier. What he had called Hal. _My son is in the hospital,_ he had said. But being a son meant having a father, and the last time Hal had had one of those, it had not turned out so well. 

“I’m sorry I suck at this,” he said, instead of all the things he meant to say. And maybe that had been the thing to say, after all, because there was a softness to Alfred’s face. There was a hand that stroked his hair. 

“It’s all right, dear boy,” he said. “Now close your eyes and get some rest.” 

“Mmkay,” he sighed, and before the door had closed on Alfred, Hal was back asleep.

* * *

He woke in a different room, or at least that was what he thought at first. The sky outside was now dark, and the room was full of warm yellow light. It made everything seem different. He sat up in a bit of a panic, and he was startled at how easy it was to move – how little pain there was, anywhere. 

“What day is it?” he said in confusion.

“Wednesday,” Bruce said, not looking up from his tablet, where he was scrolling through something and frowning.

“Oh,” Hal said. This morning had been Wednesday too. So it was just night of the same day. Fuck, he was hungry.

“Alfred left some food,” Bruce said, as though reading his mind. 

“You’re here,” Hal said. “I thought Alfred told you not to come, I’m fine.”

Bruce set the tablet aside. “Well you might be surprised to learn I don’t always obey Alfred like a fourteen-year-old schoolboy.”

“Did you obey him when you were a fourteen-year-old schoolboy?”

“Not that well. Do you want some help up?”

“No, I’m good,” he said, looping the IV cord around the stand. His limbs still felt kind of floaty, but mostly he just felt suspended in a kind of golden haze. He stood with no difficulty, and made it to the bathroom. He kept the door cracked so he could talk to Bruce though.

“I thought you were going to stay in South Africa,” he called.

“Yes I’m sure you did.”

“I’m fine, I told you.”

“No you actually didn’t, if you recall. Alfred told me you were fine. I found your phone, by the way. I’ve got it charging for you. I thought after you felt a little better we might hold a quick review session on how phones work, because clearly you could stand a refresher.”

“Bruce, I didn’t—”

“And then once you mastered that I thought we could have another refresher on how marriages work.”

Hal made his way back to the bed and sat down carefully. “You’re mad,” he said.

“Oh no, why would you say that.” 

“It’s not a big deal,” he said desperately. “It’s just a course of muscle relaxants that—”

“You should have called me.”

Hal sat there, fingering the IV tubing. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

“And you didn’t because?”

“Because I knew you would drop everything and come running, and you can’t afford to do that with this investigation right now.”

Bruce sighed. He dug in his pocket. “Investigation has stalled until I can figure out what this is,” he said, and tossed it at Hal, who caught it one-handed. It was a rock of some sort, but it only took a glance to know it wasn’t terrestrial.

“Alien,” Hal said.

“Thanks, I got that much. What I need to know is what kind of alien. Can you narrow it down for me?”

Hal studied it. He ran his thumb over its smooth surface. Feeling the unnatural heat of it. Warmer than a rock should be, even one that had been in a pocket. But cutting it open would involve definite risks, and Bruce had been right to be wary. “I think I can,” Hal said. “But it’s not safe to do it here, even with the ring. If you help me bust out of here we can take it to the cave and work there.” 

Bruce looked thoughtful. He ran an assessing glance over Hal. “I can’t do that,” he said.

“Come on. I’m fixed up as good as I’m gonna get, you can see that. They’re letting me out of here in the morning anyway, so why wait around for the paperwork? Like you haven’t busted out of more hospitals than you can count, give me a fucking break.”

“Oh I’m not disagreeing, I’m just refusing to be in any more trouble with Alfred than I already am. He’ll be taking it out of me for weeks if I help you escape, and I’m going to need his technical support in the cave when I’m back in South Africa with this investigation, so I can’t afford to be alienating him.”

“You. . . okay, you two are like some weird dysfunctional British sitcom. Also, you’re a coward.”

“I am a judicious assessor of situations.”

Hal thought of Alfred’s fancy words for lying, and he laughed. He gave up and eased back onto the bed and its irritating plasticky mattress. Bruce had straight up ruined him for normal mattresses. “Okay, but,” he said. “I’m gonna be mad if you don’t get me out of here. And you don’t want me mad at you either.”

“A judicious assessment of this situation tells me that is the lesser of two evils.”

“You prick.” He settled back and reached for one of the croissants piled on the plate beside his bed. They were buttery and flaky and about the most heavenly thing he had ever put in his mouth. “Oh my God I’m so hungry,” he moaned. “Holy fuck this tastes good.”

“I’ve been gone two weeks,” Bruce said.

“Mm hmm,” Hal said, around another mouthful of glutinous sex. How could anything taste this fucking good?

“And you’re at least five pounds lighter,” Bruce said. His voice was tight. Hal could hear him controlling it. 

“The pain meds kill my appetite is all, it’s not a big—”

“I swear to God if you say it’s not a big deal one more time I am going to break something,” he said, and the control in his voice was cracking. Hal set the croissant down. 

“Okay,” Hal said carefully. “Okay, yes, it has not been a great two weeks. But I took steps to deal with that, and they were the right steps, and yes I should have called you, which I have already fucking said, and yes I probably should have taken those steps sooner, but I am a grown man and not a fucking child so how about you remember that when you speak to me, are we clear?”

Bruce’s eyes crackled blue fire at him, and Hal just glared right back at him. Bruce got up and stalked to the window. It was too dark to see anything out on the bay other than a wink of lights at the far end of the harbor. He watched Bruce’s breathing, watching him get himself under control. The muscle on the side of his jaw pulsed. 

“You said you would tell me when it’s time,” Bruce said.

“I did. And I will. Sweetheart,” Hal said, knowing that using Bruce’s word like that, the one he used for Hal, would get him Bruce’s eyes, and it did. He held those eyes in his. “I’m fine,” he said, as reassuringly, as firmly, as lovingly as he could. Because of course it was terror, in Bruce’s eyes. Hal would have been terrified too, if it had been Bruce in this hospital bed, Bruce whose body regularly and profoundly betrayed him. 

“Come sit down,” Hal said, and he patted the bed beside him. “Come on, come have some Dominique’s with me, Alfred got enough to feed everyone at Saturday breakfast, look at this. Oh hey,” he said, rummaging in the bag. “Gelée de kaki, what the fuck is that.”

“Persimmon jelly,” Bruce said, sitting heavily beside him. 

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Babe, among all the things I love about you, the fact that you offhand know the French for persimmon is maybe the most important thing.” He reached for the little plastic knife to spread the jelly on his croissant, but Bruce seized his hand. He grabbed it and pressed it to his mouth, closing his eyes, inhaling deeply. 

“Hey,” Hal said softly. “Hey hey hey. I’m okay.” 

“I know,” Bruce said. His voice was still muffled in Hal’s hand. 

“Babe. If I had called and said Leslie wants to admit me, but everything is fine and I don’t need you to come, would you have listened to me?”

“Maybe,” Bruce said, and he sounded like that fourteen-year-old schoolboy, just as stubborn and petulant.

“Bullshit you would have.”

Bruce sighed heavily. “Well,” he said, still cradling Hal’s hand. “At least you called Alfred. That’s progress, anyway. I may not be thrilled that he didn’t call me first thing, but at least you weren’t trying to go it alone or some ridiculous thing like that, like you might have done six months ago.”

“Yeah,” Hal said, his intestines writhing a little in guilt. “Look at me, learning about this family shit.”

Bruce’s snort told him that was pushing it, so he leaned in and gave the scratchy cheek a kiss. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s kick back with some buttered pastries and jelly de kaka, or whatever it is. We can have our own Netflix and chill here tonight, and I won’t even try to bust out of jail, I swear.”

A second snort told him Bruce was suspicious about that, but he was determined to spend the evening being the Best Husband Ever to make up for having been such a secretly shitty one. When Bruce eventually fell asleep in the naugahyde recliner he didn’t even wake him and try to persuade him to go home, but let him be. Bruce wouldn’t have listened to him anyway.

He had slept so much in the day that sleeping that night proved nearly impossible, even if it hadn’t been for the nurses coming in every two hours. Around one in the morning he picked up his phone, which Bruce had left charging on his bedside table. He scrolled to Alfred’s number, considered.

 _Hey,_ he wrote. _So thank you again for not ratting me out. Like I said, I suck at this. And I’m sorry about before._

He stared at what he had written, watching the cursor. It was a coward’s way out. He backspaced over the last sentence he had written. _Sorry for not trusting you to have my back,_ he wrote instead. 

He hit send, and was surprised when the phone buzzed back at him in a matter of seconds.  


_You ought to be sorry for not sleeping and getting your rest, that’s what you ought to be sorry for._

Hal rolled his eyes. 

_All is well, I trust?_ Alfred wrote.

_You mean with Bruce. Yeah, we’re okay. We will be, like always._

_Very glad to hear it Master Harold._

Hal stared at the phone and grinned. He was back to Master Harold. So they were okay. Pretty sneaky little system the English had, for letting you know exactly where you stood just by what name they used for you. Or maybe that was just Alfred. Probably it wasn’t fair to blame an entire nation for one man’s emotional manipulation. 

_I see what you did there, _Hal wrote.__

__

__

_You’re too clever for me._

_That’s some more of that English sarcasm isn’t it. I’m starting to suspect you don’t actually think I’m clever._

_My boy, I think you are the most desperately clever, most desperately stupid man I have ever met, save one._

Hal just lay there staring at his phone’s screen. Alfred would do that sometimes – just be humming along, spritzing his orchids or something, and then offhand say something that sliced the legs right out from under you. Come to think of it, Bruce would turn on a dime like that too. Maybe it was just an Alfred thing, and Bruce had learned to interact with people from the person who raised him, now there was an earth-shattering discovery. They were father and son, in all the ways that mattered, and sometimes Hal still forgot that. _If Bruce is my son, then what are you?_ had been Alfred’s question, and he hadn’t had an answer. Would maybe be working on an answer for that the rest of his life. 

_. . . . thanks I think_ , was the answer he came up with for now. 

_Now get some rest. You have a busy day ahead tomorrow I’m afraid. Master Damian has declared his intention to build a boat, and he believes you gave him permission._

_VERY UNTRUE_

_Not at all untrue. You have a deplorable habit of paying insufficient attention when he asks for permission to do something unwise, illegal, or potentially lethal. I find it entirely credible that you might have made some sort of grunt of assent that Master Damian interpreted as permission to turn the bottom of the carriage house into a naval shipyard._

_FIRST OFF I do not grunt. Also WHAT the hell is happening with the carriage house?????_

_I’d hate to spoil the surprise._

_That boy is outta control. I’m not one to make idle threats, but I feel a Dad Talk coming on. A very sternly worded one, with lots of. . . stern._

_He’s quaking in his boots, I’m sure. And now you truly must rest. I shall see you first thing in the morning._

_K. Good night, Alfred._

_Good night, Master Harold._

He held the phone in his hand, reading back through their exchange for some time, just thinking. It was weird, was all. He had just never thought about it, really – what word to use for him and Alfred. And it was weirder to think that all this time he had been working so hard to be a good dad to Damian, but the truth was, in order to figure out how to be a dad, he probably had to figure out first how to be a son. Like there was this long chain of being, father to son to father to son, and those words maybe didn’t have the relationship to biology that he had always assumed they did. And he was taking his place in that chain, and maybe that meant that he didn’t need to make everything up himself, maybe there was actually a whole world that had already figured all this shit out, and. . . the words kept slipping away from him. Maybe he was more tired than he had thought. But then he glanced up and Bruce’s eyes were on him, like he’d been watching him for a while. 

Bruce got up from the recliner and padded silently over to the bed, and he took Hal’s phone and put it on the nightstand. Hal scooted over, and Bruce folded himself in the bed next to Hal, and Hal folded himself around Bruce. They lay there silently, neither one sleeping really. 

_Sorry I fucked up,_ he could say, but Bruce probably knew that part already. With any luck he could get Bruce back on a plane tomorrow. With even more luck, he could figure out that provenance issue for him. Maybe do more than that, though Bruce wouldn’t be thrilled about the Green Lantern getting interested in his investigation. Well, Bruce could get over his damn self.

Bruce’s thumb was tracing small circles on his chest. Hal nuzzled at his hair, the deep sweet smell of him. He breathed him in. Bruce had been gone two weeks, and that was a long time to be away from someone when you were as physically addicted to them as he was to Bruce. Idly he thought about sucking Bruce off right here in this hospital bed, which he absolutely and from experience knew Bruce would let him do, because Bruce had never once told him no about anything in bed. He didn’t abuse that power, but he didn’t forget it either. 

“Alfred’s right,” Bruce murmured, “you should get some rest.”

“How do you know that’s what Alfred told me?”

“Because that’s what Alfred always says.”

Hal chuckled softly, and Bruce tucked his head into his shoulder, and rested his head against Hal’s. They didn’t say anything more that night, and Hal must have dozed off, because when he woke it was full light. He was still in Bruce’s arms though. He let his eyes slip shut again and let himself be cradled back into sleep, and the waves on the bay outside his window were somehow inside too, and the bed was a boat, one of Damian’s stupid fucking boats, and he was being rocked to sleep on one of them – anchored, at rest, safe in harbor at last.


End file.
